Trial Driving Statutes
If you have a car accident or a highway accident, resulting in severe injury such as brain injury, back injury, paralysis, spinal cord injury or wrongful death, you may have to have a trial to sort out who caused the car accident or highway accident. If this happens, it pays to have experienced accident lawyers on your side. How do you know if a lawyer is a skilled accident attorney? Well there are a couple of ways. Usually an advertisement is not the way to find out. Most lawyers who advertise cannot get work any other way. It often means they do not have experience and other lawyers or former clients will not recommend them. Those lawyers who invade the privacy of a car accident or construction injury victim appear to be chasing the ambulance. It doesn’t take much to advertise. Experience in the Court room is the key issue.
Go to the website for the National Board of Trial Advocacy. This group certifies lawyers, in the same way doctors become board certified. To be board Certified, a lawyer must have a minimum number of trials. They must also pass a test. To remain certified, the lawyer must complete a minimum number of trials in the last five years. A certification from the National Board of Trial Advocacy is good evidence that the accident lawyer you select has the know how to properly represent you if you are injured by a drunk driver, or hurt in a construction accident, or any other type of injury.
Another way to find a good lawyer is to ask a friend who they recommend. If the first friend does not know, ask a second. If your friend or family member has gotten good results with a particular lawyer, chances are good the lawyer is able to properly handle your case. Just because a lawyer says he means business, or its just that easy to recover, does not mean they have the know how to represent you. Ask the lawyer questions. Ask about his experience, not the people who work for him, but his experience. How many trials has he had in the last 10 years? His experience, not the experience of the people who work for him. Ask if he will personally handle your case. Ask if he is board certified. If he’s not board certified, or promises to handle the case and then doesn’t, or you can’t get him on the phone, then you probably do not have a lawyer who will be able to handle your case.
I spoke about trial experience because a good accident attorney knows from experience what to expect at trial. In a car accident case, whether against a drunk driver or a sober driver, statutes controlling the use of the road are extremely important to who will win the case at trial. The rules of the road are there to keep us all safe. We all have to work together to make the roads safe, and rules of the road do just that. Good accident attorneys will use the rules of the road to show who was the cause of the accident. If a driver violates the rules of the road, the law says that violation can be used as evidence as to who caused the collision. Take for example a person who is driving 45 miles per hour in a thirty mile per hour zone. Travelling that much faster than the speed limit is evidence that that driver was negligent. There are many different rules that are effective at showing who is negligent.
If you are a juror, and you hear that someone violated the rules of the road, know that you are being told that driver was negligent and likely was a cause of the collision. This is good evidence upon which to base your verdict.
At Young and Young, both John P. Young and Fredrick W. Crow have been board certified trial lawyers for more than ten years. John and Fred are accident attorneys who have the knowledge and experience to win at trial. Give us a call.